PS 3515 
.035 15 
1913 
Copy 1 




















f f 



m 





Glass VSZS /S' 

Book 
Gopyrigl 



Q& 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 




THE INNER GARDEN 

A BOOK OF VERSE 



BY 



HORACE HOLLEY 



DECORATIONS BY 

BERTHA HERBERT HOLLEY 




f-f^ 



BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1913 



03*1* 



Sherman, French & Company 
Copyright, 1913 



/A i 
©CI.A35110 6 



TO 

BERTHA HERBERT HOLLEY 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

For permission to use copy- 
righted poems in this volume, ac- 
knowledgments are due Century 
Company, New York City; New 
Coffee Club, Williamstown, Mass- 
achusetts ; Lawrenceville School, 
Lawrenceville, New Jersey; Ju- 
lian Park, Esquire; Rhythm, 
London; the Freewoman, Lon- 
don; and the Manchester Play- 
goer, Manchester, England. 




PART I 



PAGE 

Prophecy 1 

Invocation 2 

To the God of Nature 3 

Touchstone 4 

Evocative . . 6 

The Cry 7 

"Still Must the Summer Hope" ... 8 

The Leaves 10 

December 12 

A Landscape in New England .... 14 

The Storm 16 

The Three Birds 18 

In Italy . 27 

The Invitation 28 

The Inner Garden 29 

Sunset on Arno 32 

Holiday 34 

Primavera ... 35 



CONTENTS 
PART II 

PAGE 

Pride o' Youth 39 

Ad Mundum 40 

Circe 41 

Outcasts 42 

"Oh! What Am I?" 43 

To a Friend 44 

Music 45 

"The Proudest Soul" 46 

Valedictory 47 

Poet 48 

To W. A. G 50 

Song for Comrades 51 

To a Friend in Absence 52 

On a Day of Sad Omen 53 

To the Unknown Friend 54 

Innocence 55 

Love 56 

The Fallen 58 

"Forget the Graves of Heroes" .... 59 

The Loveless 60 

Vale 61 

On the Occasion of a Birthday .... 62 

PART III 

The Immigrants 65 

America 66 

The Spanish War Soldier 67 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A Harper on the Campus 68 

On the Retirement of Doctor Hewitt and 

Professor Spring 69 

Chatterton in Elysium 70 

To a Young Girl 75 

Beauty 76 

Miniatures 77 

Invocation 80 

Cashmere Lady 81 

To Hertha 82 

The Mirror 83 

The Sick Child 84 

The Wife 85 

The Lost Epic 86 

The Litle World 87 

PART IV 

To the Unknown God 91 

Indictment of Time 92 

Epigram: Insomnia 93 

The Resigned 94 

God-in-Man 95 

Lucifer 96 

The Stricken King 97 

Christi Amor 99 

"As When From Out a Home" .... 100 

Memorabilia 101 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

War and Peace 102 

Tiger 104 

The Beginning of Laughter .... 105 

The Poet 110 

The Hypocrite Ill 

Idolator 112 

Crisis 113 

Master 114 

Promethean 115 

Pilgrims 116 

Free Captains 117 

The Empty Bowl 119 

The Materialistic Scientist .... 122 

Immortal 123 

Epigram 124 

Orthodoxy 125 

Elegy 126 

The Return of Religion 130 





PROPHECY 

i/l verse, all music, artistry 
Of cunning hand and feeling heart ; 
All loveliness, whate'er it be, 
Shows but a hint and broken part 



Of that vast beauty and delight 
Which man will know when he is free, 
When in his soul the alien night 
Folds up like darkness from the sea. 

For ev'n in song man still reveals 
His ancient fear, a mournful knell, 
Like one who dreams of home, but feels 
The bonds of an old prison cell. 



[i] 



INVOCATION 
pake in me, O Spring, the passion 

gay 

That stirs delight in every sullen 
clod; 

That steeds the mind to ride the Milky Way 
And makes the heart a Bethlehem of God. 




[2] 




TO THE GOD OF NATURE 

healing God, upon my throat 
Let cool and joyous breezes blow 
That bear the lone, contented note 
Of meadow rivers wimpling low ; 

And prayers from the solemn trees 
That o'er the night their anthems roll 
To hearts like mine, to fears like these, 
From earth's unconquerable soul. 

Let pleating rains make me demure 
In silent growth and healthy powers 
Like forest children, boldly pure, — 
Like sober, self-sufficient flowers. 

For I would be as they, and dwell 
True son of nature, strong yet mild, 
Touched with her universal spell, 
Her chosen priest, obedient child. 



[3] 




TOUCHSTONE 

h ! give to him a forest place 
Made lustrous with triumphant 

spring 
And mellowed by the sober grace 
Of autumn's pageant perishing; 

Oh give to him an ancient tree 
By gossip wind and stream begirt, 
Whose druid speech, whose silence, free 
Too conscious spirits from their hurt; 

Give solitudes of noble days 
That still unspoiled by sullen woe, 
Before his mild, prophetic gaze 
Like epic chiefs in glory go, — 

These give. His nature does implore 
As other men their daily bread, 
For surely from our common store 
Such lives on beauty can be fed. 

Oh surely they can dwell apart 
From fiery pit, from blinding steam, 
To cherish with a faithful heart 
Our lost felicities of dream ; 



[4] 



Who, grateful for the gifts of men 
Shall render dearer gifts than those, 
Recovering from the earth again 
Shy gods of rapture and repose. 



L«] 




EVOCATIVE 

h see! o'er yonder hill afar, 
Steeped in serenest June, 
The plaintive wonder that's a star, 
The magic that's the moon ; 



Which throng the corners of the night 

With people of dead years, 
Now glistening with their shy delight, 

Now hidden by their tears. 

We shall not die. Our passion brings 

One wistful love the more, 
Heaps magic on these stedfast things, 

Adds wonder to their store. 



[6] 



THE CRY 



'er hoary night, more dark than 
old — 
A cry that doth earth's passion 
hold: 



The anguish of a lonely bird; 

A sudden, thin, affirighting cry, 
The wail of some too-fearful soul 
Which writhing in her hopeless dole 

Sobs o'er the night against the sky; 

A cry that risen lingers still, 
Its single pulse including life. 
It cleaves the darkness like a knife, 

It cleaves the spirit like a chill. 

It wavers hollow, ringing far 

High o'er the blanket of the night, 
To mingle with celestial light 

And greet the ruin of a star. 



m 




STILL MUST THE SUMMER HOPE" 

he summer comes upon her time of 
cold, 
Yet in some sunny corner of the 
world, — 

A wall that drinks the south, or stilly wold, — 
Flaunts in her hair a crimson rose uncurled. 

She tricks her faded wardrobe with a flower 
Of later blooming, hidden from the sun ; 
With fallen leaves makes shift to mend her 

bower 
And sings when her dear labor all is done. 

Yet doth the wind discover her in sleep, — 
The wind that driveth doom to woodland ways : 
Her bosom shivers and her closed eyes weep, 
Her white hands grope i' the leaves and hide 
her face. 

All night her sleep is haunted by a dream 
Of thieves that steal the flower from her hair. 
The red dawn wakes her with its glaring 

gleam, — 
When feeling quick, her blossom is not there ! 



[8] 



Then hand on heart that bursting it not break, 
She sees one petal ashen in the mold, 
And crouches low and presses it to cheek: 
Still must the summer hope against the cold. 



m 




THE LEAVES 

ioppity skip! the leaves are free, 
Down the lane of the world they go 
Farther and farther in wreathy 
blow. 
Hoppity skip! but wait for me! 

Truant all, that left the tree, 
Heartless all, that left him so. 
Down the lane of the world you go 
Hoppity skip! but wait for me! 

Whirling and curling o'er lane and lea, 
Hoppity skip! in a huddled row 
Racing all day the winds that blow, 
Free at last! but wait for me! 

Over and over, mad with glee, 
Drunk in November's tawny glow, 
On to the edge where light is low — 
Hoppity skip ! but wait for me ! 

Elfin leaves, wait for me! 
Together before the wind we go. 
The winds of the year behind us blow 
Hoppity skip! untethered, free! 



[10] 



On up the titled world go we, 
Over the edge in the sun's last glow,- 
Over and down, — and Night below : 
"Take us at last, the leaves and me!" 



[ii] 




DECEMBER 

arth and man are now December's ; 
hill to valley yields the light 
Of the sun's pathetic embers 
dropped from his remoter 
flight. 
Who foresaw the magic changes winter flings 

on lake and wood? — 
Grander rise the mountain ranges, deeper 

throbs the forest mood, 
Trees stand still with inward passion, waters 

pause and hold their breath 
In a blind, prophetic fashion caught by 

dreamy sleep not death. 
Nature's central spirit trembles in an agony 

of rapture 
Which her spring-pomp mild resembles but may 

never wholly capture. 
Nay! nor birdsong nor bright blossom nor the 

mad delight of horses 
Half reveal what through her bosom in the mat- 
ing season courses 
When in secret caverns mingle heaven-sire and 

nature-mother 
And the far-most planets tingle with the love 

of each for other. 



[12] 



Hence from every dim horizon creeps a thick 
and early eve, — 

'Tis the earth's attempt to prison heaven's god 
ere he can leave ; 

Hence the winter-dream of mortals, melancholy 
while elate, 

Baffled just outside the portals of the moated 
house of fate; 

Hence the gleam of wistful magic on the turn- 
ing of the days, 

Hence the courage more than tragic of our 
sympathetic gaze. 



[13] 




A LANDSCAPE IN NEW ENGLAND 

he sudden lights of sunset fall. 
I tire, and pausing turn to lean 
Upon a weather-dampened wall 
That bounds, like sleep, the dreamy 
scene. 

Before me, worn, a pasture lies 
And careless, truant breezes blow 
Puffing, from gusty April skies 
The feeble grasses as they go. 

A swollen brook, half-underground, 
Its hidden voice now clear, now still, 
O'erflows the world with droning sound 
Like elfin throats beneath the hill. 

To bearded hills the pasture runs 
And orchard-slopes of twisted trees, 
That warmed in vain by modern suns, 
Huddle in patient agonies. 

I see a pillar, ashen-gray, 
Fallen upon the hillside lone . . . 
And yearn, as though my father lay 
Beneath that unremembered stone. 

The mossy wall has chilled my hand, 
A fresh wind drives the clouds to foam ; 
The day's dim embers light the land 
And light a house no more a home. 
[14] 



The roof-tree sags, the gables flare, 
A locked door trembles to the wind; 
The broken windows darkly stare 
Like empty sockets of the blind. 

But more than blind, old house, alas, 
No inward being warms your breast 
And never foot those chambers pass 
Save Time's, the last, the saddest guest. 

Ah, more than weak and blind and dark 
Like hearts in failure and disgrace, 
You, full of death and ruin, mark 
A sadder grave, that hold a race. 

Beneath the gradual stars I wait, 

A watchman stationed in a dream. 

My thoughts, like prophets moved by fate, 

Lament destruction, then redeem. 

"O God !" within my heart I cry ; 

"Man fails, the lands their harvest cease, — 

No lonelier hill implores the sky, — 

Yet here is beauty, here is peace." 

Here, from our broken human mold 
An austere spirit floats abroad 
And decks with reverent faith this old 
Forgotten breathing-place of God. 

[15] 




THE STORM 

ow wild the night! How wild the 
will! 
The sullen skies contract to black 
And all the cope of heav'n is shrill 
With hurricane and thunder-wrack, 

And o'er the scared and cowering lands 
The reckless armies of the blast 
Fulfill ten thousand mad commands 
Before they sheathe the blade at last. 

They shatter old, patrician trees, 
They stem the torrent in its bed, 
They plow the barren, tumbled seas 
And plant them with the pallid dead ; 

They gather o'er our city streets 
Where men are huddled close in pain 
And loose, from hidden, far retreats, 
The lightning and the driven rain. 

They shake the ancient towers of kings, 
They pause to snatch a diadem, 
They rouse the anarchy of things — 
Only the prisoner smiles at them! 



[16] 



With wilder threats, with madder boast 
They seize the underworld's allies 
And marshalling its fiery host 
Attack the fortress of the skies. 

In vain ! In vain ! The gods awake, 
Girding themselves in mild alarm, 
And soon the sun's bright chariots break 
The jealous league of night and storm. 

How fair the dawn, how calm the will! 
The soul looks out upon the day; 
His pure and earnest passions thrill 
In sudden gladness to obey. 



[17] 




THE THREE BIRDS 

o gloomy-dull the ancient wood, 
The trees so close, so darkly stood 
That sight nor hearing could de- 
clare 

If sunlight ever entered there. 

It seemed as nature, long ago, 

Had drunk some goblet mixed in woe 

And while elsewhere the world spun round 

Here time and effort lay aswound. 

In hidden caves and hollow trees 

The gaping brutes forebore to seize 

The rabbit, deer, or other prey 

Which, weary, had not run away. 

The very brooks did dream along 

J^ike verses in a shepherd's song 

And had no will or heed to go 

Save always round, and round, and slow; 

But in their thick, distorted glass 

No bright and lovely shapes could pass, 

For in that ancient twilight-place 

The fairest vision lost its grace 

In vain repose and empty sleep. 

'Twas merely slumber laid too deep 

And merely darkness fall'n too long 

That made of trees a wizard-throng, 

And in the branches overhead 

Put bats and owls, a winged dread, 

[18] 



And twisted every barren root 

To catch, like dead hands, at the foot, 

And pulled the leaves to cling and drag 

And hold the night in, like a bag, 

And made the forest sanctity 

A portent and fatality. 

A little bird there was, all white, 
Oppressed to silence by the night, 
That restless flew from limb to limb. 
An ancient wonder leapt in him, 
Some longing native to his heart 
That stretched his milky wings apart 
And seldom let him droop his bill 
In heedless slumber, dull and still. 
While shadow held that wood in pawn 
And blotted even, noon and dawn, 
Within his breast, close-folded, lay 
The joy of sweet, recurrent day; 
For gladder customs moved in him 
And nature's spell could only dim 
The world's delight and lustihood 
In one not born within the wood. 
Yet thickly hung the dismal spell ! 
How many times (I could not tell) 
The bird in blind bewilderment 
About his leafy prison went; 
But flew he low or flew he high 
The cavy forest shed the sky 

[19] 



And all the beating of his wings 
Could not surmount those fragile things. 
(Water's more strong, by wizardy, 
Than man's determined masonry.) 
A pine, nathless, whose aged growth 
A little topped the common sloth, 
Upraised a stern, compelling crown 
Above the twilight, sifting down 
(Like laughter early scared away), 
A timid, truant rill of day. 
But what's too small for chance to use? 
Enchantment falls by its abuse, 
And darkness rolled from blackest night 
Spreads finest background for a light; 
So hither, hither, hither flew 
The bird at last and instant knew 
The sun himself, the kindly sun 
Was laboring in that flicker dun, 
Then to the highest twig-point sped 
And poised to sing with tilted head. 
Through lucent windows of the dawn 
The sun was painting brook and lawn, 
And like a sea-wet pearl, there stirred 
Soft glimmering colors on the bird. 
He sang a little, joyous hymn 
Of trilling echo, bland and dim, 
That might, by its pure spirit, seem 
The measure of a fairy's dream, 
Or serve to waken, without dread, 
A baby smiling in his bed. 
[20] 



For days as many as you'd find 
Of terrors in a coward's mind, 
Of sorrows in a prisoner's heart, 
No joyous song had any part 
Within that crushed and cabined place. 
The hymn he sang, by beauty's grace, 
(That hymn of glad, recovered things), 
Daring the wood's dumb wanderings, 
Bore plaintive summons to arise 
And join in worship of the skies. 
But all the furry ears were closed, 
Nature still in the forest dozed 
And even echo sobbed and died ; 
But like a love-song to a bride 
She hears while others heed it not, 
The hymn, low-throbbing through each spot. 
Struck quick excitement in one bird 
And passed the snoring beasts unheard, 
Though here and there a paw upraised 
And eyes a moment stared, unglazed. 
Now higher wheeled the healthy sun, 
For earth elsewhere was day begun 
When like a lover to his mate 
This bird flew to the other straight 
And perched him on the pine-tree high. 
He shone as blue as burnished sky, 
And 'twas a rare, a pleasant sight, 
The azure bird, the bird so white. 
Kindled in that religious blue 
Ev'n daylight burned more rich, more new, 
[21] 



Some strange and august visiting. 
A prouder song had he to sing, — 
The second bird, — of deeper note 
And sped abroad from fuller throat, 
As when a conscious, vital power 
Leaps eager into use. An hour 
Though brimmed with swift cascades of song, 
For ecstasy gave none too long 
Nor drained his effortless, deep mirth. 
But lo, within the forest-girth, 
Through all that lonely isle of night 
Our joyous world of change and light 
Flowed murmuring in; the ancient spell 
Like smoke rose heavily from the dell, 
Rose heavily close-packed gloom and dread. 
The huddling isolation fled, 
And as a sleeper opes his eye 
That wold unlidded to the sky. 
The trees exalted then their brows 
And all unlocked their tangled boughs, 
The runnel-brooks precipitously 
Churned forward to the stalwart sea, 
The caverned bears for hunger roared, 
Squirrels their autumn-wealth unstored 
And rabbits, quickened from old trance, 
Over the greensward leapt in dance, 
The active spirit of the wood 
Stirring in April lustihood. 
Yet as a dreamer waked doth see 
The forms of lingering fantasy 
[22] 



And on the world awhile will brood 
To tally it with inner mood, 
So the sweet dawn of that delight 
Took fever from the lapsed night 
And day and time seemed all too slow 
Till each must in his prison go 
And reassume the dreary spell. 

Now the brisk bird to silence fell; 
His song had driven gloom away 
But could not tie the ebbing day; 
The natural twilight of the eve 
Made all the woodland droop and grieve, 
And solemn silence fell on all 
As if the place again were thrall 
To endless night ; yet sudden, — lo 
On mighty wing aloft did go 
As lordly bird as e'er was seen! 
His beak shone white, but mellow green 
His body and his rapid wings 
(The color of enduring things). 
No silence now, nor sluggard sleep 
This kingly bird could prisoned keep 
When once, from his low nesting-place 
He saw day fade from heaven's face. 
'Twas light, more light he sought, and light 
He dragged from the set teeth of night 
Where high the furrowed clouds among 
The sunset's golden flowers upsprung. 

[23] 



So brimmed with light as bowls with wine 

He faced the setting sun, divine, 

Then like a free, unlaboring breeze 

Dropped flight among the dusky trees. 

Still, still the pine upraised his head 

But now, but now in rueful dread 

And expectation spended quite, 

The azure bird, the bird of white 

Huddled in silence. What's so still 

As throats that once a song did fill? 

But hark ! O forest, sleep not yet ! 

Too soon you grieve, too soon forget, 

And liken evening's natural dark 

To hateful magic. — Forest, hark! 

To the hushed wood the green bird sang, 

And like a victor's bugle rang 

Redoubled echo near and far. 

It might have risen to a star 

And pierced the young moon's empty mask 

Flouting the world's unfinished task, 

Or dipping in the roaring sea 

Have learned its audibility; 

But whatsoe'er its journey's end, 

(Or where the seas or skies extend), 

The song, vibrating through the dell, 

O'erawed and banned the ancient spell! 

As custom to his wont must keep, 
Came night and drowned the wood in sleep, 

[24] 



But slumber, settling o'er the trees, 

Showed no more dreary fantasies 

And in the brooklet's dimpled glass 

Henceforth but lovely shapes could pass— 

Ev'n winter, yellowing the leaf, 

Told no irremediable grief — 

For now, i' the forest's sunlit bound 

The world of time and change spun round 

And 'tis enchantment's utter bane 

When the world's seasons roll again. 

All this the singing birds had done 
Who found, and heralded, the sun. 

If in your spirit's hid expanse, 

O if (as I) you knew the trance 

Which like enchantment o'er a wood 

Prisons the soul in twilight mood; 

And bows, like darkly-huddled trees, 

The proud, exultant ecstasies ; 

And roils the passions' silver glass, 

Dwarfing the pleasures as they pass ; 

And drugs the thoughts in stupor deep 

Like the wood-folk in dreary sleep, 

(As if the spirit long ago 

Had drunk some goblet mixed in woe),- 

Then happy, happy, if (as I), 

You put such mournful magic by 

[25] 



And raise at last the painful spell 
By Hope's, Love's, Faith's sweet miracle! 
These are the soul's three singing birds: 
This, all the meaning of my words. 



[26] 




IN ITALY 

beggar slept among the weeds 
And Hertha said to me: 
"God loves the tare, if anywhere, 
In Italy." 



[*n 




THE INVITATION 

weet, 'tis morning! come, arise. 
Dawn unpetals in the skies ; 
To the garden quickly go. 
See, the cosmos to and fro 

Nodding to the friendly East. 

I have honey for a feast, 

Milk and bread, with yellow wine 

From the bland Italian vine. 

Here, where nature riots, we 

Rightly dare such revelry 

As shall stir a garden-mood 

In our sympathetic blood. 

Hasten, sweet! the heavens turn 

To their dark, funereal urn, 

Let us greet the rapid hour 

'Neath the shedding of a flower, 

And, like bees, take riches hence 

For our winter's indigence, 



[28] 




THE INNER GARDEN 

TO L. H. B. 

t is enough to feel 
The farthest, faintest beat 
Of life's invigorating heart; 
Oh sweet, sweet 
To seize on things, as all may, by the five senses, 
Create an inward world lovelier, more real 
Than this cold counterpart 
Of plumbless, void immenses. 
It is enough, and leaves no more to ask 
Creator or Destroyer, Maker, Changer 
For in itself it gives a godlike task. 

The wind blows, the sea rises in storm; 

People pass and repass, the loved, the stranger 

Each with his landscape about him, his mood, 

His virtue to help or harm. 

The cloud 

From its own moment's personality, 

Its share in our whole fellowhood — 

Listen ! it cries a secret aloud ! 

Thus attentive, not otherwise, we learn 
The use of things we touch and hear and see, 
Their places in our inward garden-dream 
Enduring each, evocative, complete. 
Thus, though the cloud-form turn 

[29] 



Into the blue again 

And every brotherhood and scheme 

Of sympathetic men 

Scatter, destroyed, undone ; 

Something, if only a faith, remains 

Added to the world's store 

That never was before, 

Worthy, significant and sweet. 

Oh, 'tis enough for one 

To hail within himself the faintest beat 

Of that warm, central heart ! 

Who reckons life by passing joys and pains? 

These are but scales that jealousy and spite 

Hold to each other's emptiness of life; 

They own no part 

In man's innate capacity and might, 

Living for life itself, whether 'tis peace or 

strife, 
Glad only, glad always for living! 

While we are still whole-souled and glad 
For that small nature we had 
And fling no curse on others' ampler giving, 
The powers, the gods can never quite forget 
We wait obedient yet, — 
Never they dare withhold 
Their fees of purple and gold. 
Nay, while we wait 

Our lives are senses needful to the world: 
[30] 



Eyes which if darkened could not be 
God's witness to some modern mystery ; 
Ears which too-closely furled, 
Voices too-early still, 
Could never listen His prophetic will 
Or cry abroad His fate. 



[31] 




SUNSET ON ARNO 

he sun has gathered o'er his face 
A veil of amber mist 
And to his evening resting-place 
Leans slowly, having kissed 
Each snowy summit set with grace 
In bays of amethyst. 

Slow twilight and calm river met 

Like music in the eyes, 
For each exultant glance beget 

A moment's paradise 
Where beauty's Eden lingers, yet 

Unbanished to the skies. 

A changed world pleads for worship while 

These mystic colors pass 
That from ecstatic heavens file 

Like officers of mass, 
The Arno a cathedral aisle 

Lit by memorial glass. 

All common things of sky and earth 

Seem moving to a rhyme 
As if the sense took finer worth 

From vision more sublime ; 
The soul recalls a holy birth 

In other place or time. 



[32] 



From what far, secret mountain-stream 

These solemn waters flow ; 
What springs of disavowed esteem 

Their deep enchantment throw, — 
Oh from what source of ancient dream 

And vales of long ago? 

Proud stream, with tribute beauty lined, 

Palace and cypress trees, 
Triumphant down thy current wind 

The past's rich argosies ; 
Such craft as bear a willing mind 

Out to infinite seas. 



[33] 




HOLIDAY 

ake dulling sleep away 
Too-anxious gods of labor ! 
We laugh to scorn your gifts of 
calm repose. 
Bring rarer gifts than those, — 
The garland and the tabor; 
Meadow and grove are bright with holiday! 

Oh raise the wreathed pole 

In ancient, pagan fashion ; 

Summon the piper and the fiddler round 

To voice with ardent sound 

Our deepest, dumbest passion, 

Silent too long in our devoted soul. 

What though our bodies bow 

Or earthward droop our glances? 

These are but servants to our hearts' desire, 

Which catching secret fire 

From songs and May-day dances, 

The laggard limbs with eager grace endow. 

Yea, every joy you give, 

Each soul-intoxication, 

Turns back the gathering tide of doubts and 

fears, 
Restores our jubilant years 
As by divine creation, 

And frees the rhythmic powers by which we live. 
[34] 




PRIMAVERA 

he bud whose joyous odor first 
Fills April winds with wine, 
As long in nature's heart 'twas 
nursed 
'Twas longer nursed in mine. 

To every passion of the earth 

And glamour of the spring 
I give a spiritual birth 

Transmuting everything. 

The blush upon that rose demure, 

Yon ripple o'er the sea, 
This proudly warbling robin, sure 

Are all but parts of me ! 

The rapture like a warming fire 

That makes the year divine, 
Could only burn from love's desire — » 

Could only burn from mine. 

Though nature show her ancient bill, 

Boast loves of other years, 
She brought no spring to me, until 

I watered it with tears. 

My heart has paid its winter, now 

My heart acclaims its spring, 
And life is like a barren bough 

Where sudden blossoms cling. 
[35] 



Through winter-ways of grievous thought, 
Up darkened paths of doubt, 

My own, my rightful love I sought — 
At last I found her out! 

In drear indifference she passed 
Like spring to prisoned men. 

I never cared; I care at last: 
She will not pass again. 

The tender beauty of her face 

I molded from despair ; 
My sorrow crowned her inward grace, 

My faith made her so fair. 

As from a shining, golden bowl 

Men turn the eager wine, 
I poured the nectar of her soul 

From this pure hope of mine. 

From thence the spring and she arise, 

Glad pilgrims of the earth, 
Who vainly ask among the skies 

The secret of their birth. 

Roll on, inexorable year! 

Take spring, take love from me; 
The heart that finds fulfillment here 

Requires eternity. 

[36] 




PRIDE O' YOUTH 

pray thee, Lord, when thou hast 
mind to take me, 
Bear me on swiftly through the 
toothless days. 
Let howsoe'er destruction seize and break me 
If but no blindness trip me and amaze. 

Let me not grope for Death, nor asking, 

mumble 
In my wet beard the words that fiercer came; 
Crush as thou wilt, and as thou must, me 

humble — 
But Lord, I pray, let no one see my shame! 



[39] 




AD MUNDUM 

I'erawe me not with marshalling of 
numbers, 
Thy thousands perished woeful as 
I deem, 
Who lived their lives like dreams of one who 

slumbers, — 
Then shall I add more failure to their dream? 

But I would live ! would live ! and so not be 
A godlike force in witless motion spent, 
An idle ripple on a barren sea 
Or shadow flung across the firmament. 



[40] 




CIRCE 

Circe-world," I cried, "who dost 
If beguile 

Youth to its ruin, age to dumb 
despair, 

Dressing with fresh deceit each mortal mile 
To coil our souls in thy delusive snare ; 
Discovered wanton, lovely though thou be 
Thy lust shall never spoil my healthy years 
While I, forewarned life, can labor free, 
Untainted of the world's degrading tears." 
But now, alas, the world on every side 
And time's scarred reign confirmed upon my 

heart, 
The closer, sadder truth disarms my pride — 
This same world's I and I of it am part. 
"Poor Circe-world," I moan, "whose siren 

bane 
Ourselves do mix, do proffer and ... do 
drain !" 



[41] 




OUTCASTS 

of the world who shuffle to our 
doom, 
Who dull with basest lead the gold 
of time, 

Despoiling where we may the tender bloom 
Of all unworldly souls that rise sublime ; 
Still scorning wisdom nobler than our use 
And scourging pity bent on our despair, 
Fouling earth's seldom beauty by abuse, 
In rage at strength more strong, at fair more 

fair; 
We suffer pain with them we hate and slay 
And more than they, as we their death survive. 
Weep not for them so glorious in decay, — 
Weep thou for us, inglorious and alive: 

Stricken ourselves in their destruction, till 
To us that Life appear we may not kill." 



[«] 




"OH! WHAT AM I?" 

h, what am I that the cold wind af- 
frays, 
Oh, what am I the ocean could con- 
found, 

A fort so open to the rebel days, 
To nature's mutiny and human wound? 
Oh, what am I so weak against the world, 
Yea, weaker in my heart that should be strong ; 
On whom this double warfare is unfurled, 
Of outer violence first, then inward wrong? 
I am a fair, a fleeting glimpse of God 
One moment visible in mortal state, 
A bit of heaven caught i' the prison-clod, 
That I nor nature's self may violate; 
Ev'n like a jewel fallen from a crown 
That's royal still, though fingered by a 
clown. 



[43] 




TO A FRIEND 

o me, dear friend, be better than the 
best, 
Be not so wise to taste before you 
eat: 

True love is in its own sweet palate blest, — 
To love alone, could such as I be sweet. 
No, do not as the world which hating hate 
And branding scorn on every sensual brow, 
Keeps them, like slaves, in fixt, unbettered state 
Who born to chains will die as they are now ; 
But rather love when I have least desert, 
When I am stupid bid me sweetly stay, 
Smile on me tenderest when I cause you hurt 
And praise me most in my most barren day. 
So shall you be as God, whose grace divine 
Flings keys of heav'n to this poor world 
of mine. 



[44] 



MUSIC 

|here are some who learn apart 
Music's high, mysterious art ; 
There are some, of whom am I, 
Minded in simplicity, 

That do feel a rapt heart-beat 

For the singer in the street; 

Whom a beggar's violin ^ 

Seizeth by the soul within. 




[45] 




"THE PROUDEST SOUL" 

he proudest soul that ever dared 
aspire, 
Though stuffed with all the chosen 
fruits of power, 
Must learn the barren, melancholy hour 
When spirits fail and aspirations tire. 
No man unto himself is wholly sire ; 
His mind is subject to the world's debate. 
So many voices urging, soon and late, 
Perplex the vision like a smoky fire. 
But ever faster, old age comes apace, 
At last by memory we stand accused. 
Our little share of godliness misused 
We seek the dread oblivion of the race. 
O Father, come with passion and with grace, 
That so in me Thyself be not abused! 



[46] 




VALEDICTORY 

^hile other youth went joyous to the 

chase 
And gathered trophies, laurel for 

the brow 

And praise from men and maidens fair enow 
Who smile upon the victors of the race; 
I bided prizeless in this silent place 
Companioned by the presence of the dead, 
Dreamed of invisible garlands for my head 
And approbation on a ghostly face. 
Call it not pride or self-consuming scorn, — 
I never curled the lip at other men: 
I reverence all as brothers, — yet for me 
There is a brotherhood, a sanctity 
In Truth and Beauty that turns my feet again 
To solitude, though lonely and forlorn. 



[47] 






POET 

|ou are but one man only ; I, many 
as I would be. 
I am heir to all existence, — to 
every lover's joy, 
The wisdom of old men, the lonely singer's min- 
strelsy, 
The bannered ranks of heroes that give battle 
and destroy. 

Oh, you are but one man only; how many, 

many I 
Who seize the lives I would live as fish are taken 

from streams 
And live them through till I weary, kings or 

saints in the sky, 
Then throw them away like masks and turn me 

to fresher dreams. 

Whoever has lived I can be ; I show to time 

again 
The spirit, if not the form, of them he has slain 

of yore. 
Nature, if ever were lost the mold and pattern 

of men, 
Could break my life into fragments and all her 

line restore. 



[48] 



You are but one man only; how many, many 

am I! 
The world is hung like a stage I gaze on within 

my breast. 
So many lives I may live? — so many deaths I 

must die, 
So often yearn for heaven, so long be denied 

my rest. 



[49] 



TO W. A. G. 



ow many days of love have slipped 
away, 
Pearls from a necklace falling in 
the sea, 

That trail their lucent course to caverns gray 
And lie through time unstrung for you and me ! 




Let not one spring, O friend, break overhead 
Her cloudy gourd of rain and sun and bloom, 
And we not trip like April from our dead, 
Who spurns, with dancing feet, her broken 
tomb. 



[50] 



SONG FOR COMRADES 

h ! let us feed our hungry hearts 
And let the world's need go, 
No man whose own desire departs 
Can mend another's woe. 



For what's the world but one great heart 
Divided in all men? 
If each with love contents his part, 
How gay the whole world then! 




[51] 



TO A FRIEND IN ABSENCE 



TO J. P. 



ur lives will meet, if they meet at all, 
Where low winds blow and the dead 

leaves fall, 
The old year, bent o'er the foun- 
tain-brim, 
Asleep in an autumn interim. 




[M] 




ON A DAY OF SAD OMEN 

y thoughts are barks the wind has 
blown 
On desolate, unhappy seas 
Which men in dread have left alone 
For slow, unholmed craft like these. 

Uncargoed of earth's labored plan, 
Its endless and consuming strife, 
They rest, unknown to mortal man, 
On old, forgotten wastes of life. 

In tideless waste between the lands 
Incessant breezes lay the foam 
And overcast, with pallid hands, 
The ancient tracks that pointed home. 



[53] 




TO THE UNKNOWN FRIEND 

ost in sorrow, never dare 
Pray for more and sterner 

power 
That unbroken you can bear 
Secret pang from hour to hour; 

But with holy passion, pray 
Heav'n your courage will deny, 
Send you weakness to betray 
One unbosoming, full cry! 

Mountain rock be fixed and cold 
And unf athomed lie the wave ; 
Heart of mortal should not hold 
Corpse within it, like the grave. 



[54] 




INNOCENCE 

sinking, midnight moon doth 
burn 
Above the cloudy, somber 
pines, 

When from my window-ledge I turn 
To write these casual lines. 

I weary, looking on the sky; 
I sadden, dreaming of the world, — 
No star but points in enmity 
The pit where I am hurled. 

In time and space, where'er it seeks, 
My thought unbars no tranquil room, 
For beauty, once so gentle, speaks 
A judgment and a doom. 

Yet on my hot, averted face 
Like friendly, pleading hands I find 
A calm, a reassuring grace 
From passive depths of mind. 

The hopeless thief on Calvary, 
Meeting the Saviour's conscious eyes 
Might know an inward sanctity 
The common world denies. 



[55] 




LOVE 

e do wrong to seek content 
And a changeless, snug re- 
pose ; 
'Twas for mortal never 
meant : 
While the spirit lives, it grows. 

When you seem no longer strange 
If I say my love, my own, 
In that moment you do change 
And I stand afar, alone. 

Let us weave no golden tie ! 
We must come and we must go 
Like the winged winds on high 
And the sea's unlabored flow. 

There is peril in our love! 
You and I, no witless flower, 
To our consummation move 
In an idle summer hour, — 

Love's a bridge across the deep 
Where the tempests maddened roll 
And the tameless demons leap 
Lusting for the risen soul. 

'Tis the truce of hate and wrong 
Which the moments must renew, 
Which by courage we prolong 
And destroying, render true. 
[56] 



There is peril in our love! 
Like the island wizard's elf, 
Power of spirit it must prove 
O'er the Calibans of self. 

Fling thy banners high, Romance, 
Sound thy trumpets loud and gay 
For the triumph we advance, 
For the peril kept at bay. 



[57] 



THE FALLEN 




hough he is fallen, give him 

praise 
More than to hosts of them 

who win, 
Who lived no fear-tormented days 
Nor nights that were a war with sin. 
Ah, think! he was not good or brave 
Yet tired at last, without a cry 
He sang his song and dug his grave 
And laid him down, alone, to die I 



[58] 



"FORGET THE GRAVES OF HEROES" 

orget the graves of heroes and no 
more laurel give, 
Or raise ten thousand more which 
every day renew ; 
So many lives are lived by those too sick to live, 
So many deeds are done by those too weak to do. 




[59] 



THE LOVELESS 



e not despise, who when the jocund 
Spring 
With lusty passion brims the eager 
clod; 

Me not despise, who lone-forgotten thing, 
Hold up an empty goblet to the God. 




[60] 



VALE 



y joy returns. Farewell! I go 
Thrilling to my own sphere of 

light. 
Weep not, nor stay in starry 
flight 
The arrow from Apollo's bow. 




[61] 




ON THE OCCASION OF A BIRTHDAY 

pray Thee, Lord, for some great 
task to do 
Full worth the years I wait be- 
neath the sky ; 
Like Solomon, who reared Thy temple high, 
Or Milton, who did the Muse of Sinai sue. 
Ev'n this the prayer that I most oft renew 
Urged on by eager thoughts that in me cry, 
Blind voices, craving freedom lest they die, 
At best their years of animation few. 
O 'tis enough these bones shall turn to dust, 
The clay pain hallowed in my mother's womb ; 
It is enough that earth keep them in tomb 
And not that spirit which they hold in trust. 
The living soul to highest labor must 
Or lie with bones in unaspiring doom. 



[63] 





PART III 





THE IMMIGRANTS 

pon my ear a deep, unbroken roar 
Thunders and rolls, as when the 

brooding sea 
Too long asleep, pours out upon the 
shore 
Full half her cohorts, tramping audibly. 
Yet here's no rushing of exasperate wind 
Booming revolt amid a factious tide, 
Nor lordly shock on reef in ambush blind 
Of foaming waves that with a sob subside. 
No ! but more fateful than the restless deep 
Whose crested hosts leap high to sink again, 
I hear, in solemn and portentous sweep, 
The slow, deliberate marshalling of men. 

No monarch moves them, pawns, to win a 

goal; 
They felt life's fever rising in the soul. 



[65] 




AMERICA 

job, this I know thy soul not yet has 
broke 
The teeming silence of her modern 
sleep : 

Whenas the storm has slipped his windy yoke, 
Revolving on, encompassing the deep ; 
Small gulfs at first and shallow inland seas 
He hissing ruffles ; but Atlantic last, 
Long-played upon, responds with harmonies 
Prophetic-vague, sublime, and tragic-vast. 
So thou, the lordliest instrument of time, 
The last, supreme, gigantic master-pipe, 
Wilt loose titanically thy solemn rhyme, 
Atlantic thunder, when the hour is ripe. 
Thus from the noble teaching of the sea 
I arm my faith with valiant prophecy. 



[66] 



THE SPANISH WAR SOLDIER 

Statue by Bela L. Pratt 

y such a youth, the bright, the epic 
morn, 
A flaming brand, is caught from 
jealous skies ; 
Earth leaps revived. See, potent in his eyes, 
Grave modern Iliads eager to be born. 




[67] 




A HARPER ON THE CAMPUS 

he forms of loveliness the Argives 
wot 
Still with all men abide enduringly 
As though our modern stupor could 
not blot 
From stifled hearts their passion utterly, 
But sometimes to this day relents a jot 
To stir old pride with desperate memory. 

But soon, too soon, the hour of vision goes. 
The booming measure sinks upon the din 
Of lesser things as waters claim and close 
Around all sunsets. — Gloomy shades begin 
To stride upon a prostrate world, and woes 
Of Night surround us, with the dread therein. 



[68] 



ON THE RETIREMENT OF DOCTOR 
HEWITT AND PROFESSOR SPRING 

Williams College 

wo scholars go, and our community 
Is reft of beauty time may not re- 
pair. 
The portico her pillars ill doth 
spare, 
That fall by night beside the wine-dark sea. 




[69] 




CHATTERTON IN ELYSIUM 

(HE stricken past full many a haven 
built 
Beyond the sullen borders of de- 
spair 

Where eager fancy, free from human guilt, 
Might roam in bliss. And 'twas a poet's care 
To sing of happy field and island fair, 
That when a weary world did covet rest 
Such lovely vision, like an answered pray'r, 
His wistful sorrow soothed. Oh, hearts were 

blest, 
That found so bright abode, low-lying in the 
west. 

Though Time, the master-mariner, whose sail 
Hath whitened every port of sea and sky, 
Now sad returned upon the droning gale 
That old familiar vision would deny; 
Yet dreams reveal the soul, they never die, 
And mourned Elysium, fled beyond the pole, 
Is raised anew in every human sigh, 
For 'tis a region of the inward soul 
Which Time shall not destroy, nor the sick 
world control. 



[70] 



Oh boldly fashion, with religious power, 
The bounty of Elysium; let there be 
(Covert against th' inhospitable hour), 
A brighter heav'n, a purer ecstasy ! 
Thus men achieve celestial liberty 
Seeking the true Elysium where 'tis spread 
Within the soul's remoter sanctity, 
The glamour of a garden ; habited 
By nobly- joyous lives the world laments as 
dead. 

Thither as poets feign, a spirit fled, 
An eager being broken by despair, 
To seek that approbation of the dead 
The living had denied his haughty prayer. 
In grace he came and solemn beauty fair 
That beame'd through desolation as the Sun, 
Deep-peering God, doth pierce the murky air 
With unrepressive glance. It proved him one 
The Muses richly dowered as they but few have 
done. 

Arrived before that portal of repose 
The panting soul in sudden terror stood; 
Not as a spy that slinketh from his foes, 
But childlike; for a full ecstatic mood 
O'erbrimmed his faculties in copious flood. 
The hope and recognition, long-denied, 



[71] 



Now pained by sheer abundance. Low he 

sighed, 
Then dared that haughty place, a boy, yet old 

in pride. 

As when the poignant breath of spring doth 

meet 
All sleeping nature, and the startled trees 
Bend with their grateful boughs as if to greet 
The kindly Goddess ; movings faint like these, 
Auspicious mood of welcome, then did seize 
The quiet of Elysium. Slowly came 
Like white clouds gathered on the flowery leas 
A shining host with lofty gift of fame, 
Lured by the faint aroma of his delicate name. 

To tell their blessed names were nothing slight 
Though joyous matter for a winter's day, 
So many generations gave them light 
Since Time was born in gardens of Cathay. 
Our kings and warriors grave, our poets they, 
Whom we vouchsafe this jealous Paradise. 
No lump and portion of the common clay 
Doth there attain, but, temperate and wise, 
Who show the God-in-man by patient sacrifice. 

Foremost who from the tedious darkness drew 
Most life into the light and use of men, 
Shakespeare and Homer. Gravely sweet they 
view 

[72] 



The pallor of the poet. "Welcome," then 

They utter kindly word, and smile again 

The echo, "Welcome."— "Woe to earth," they 

say, 
"That blotted from its use a poet's brain ! 
How many idle years will waste away 
Ere spirit so inform the cold, uneager clay !" 

Somewhat aloof, in dark austerity, 

Dante and Milton gaze upon the boy. 

Mayhap, a truant gust of memory 

Hath blown upon their minds, — his naked joy 

How strange and lovely !— Though the long 

employ 
Of God-enquiring thought had tempered cold 
Their hearts' humanity, the fond alloy 
Of sensuous love refined to fairest gold, 
Yet now in gracious warmth his passion they 

behold. 

Others approach with murmurs of applause, 
Fair gentle spirits all, but none so sweet 
As lucid Virgil. Tenderly he draws 
That lordly brow to lip. Thus fathers greet 
A favorite son ; but kin are these who meet 
Across what gulf of dark, barbaric time ! 
"Lost many a ruder age, thou dost repeat 
The magic of my verse in modern rhyme. 
Once more I hear on earth that low, regretful 
chime." 

[73] 



Their tenderness and kind fraternity 
Knit close the desperate wounds of ancient woe. 
As one new-born he smiles. How good to see 
That soothed pain must like a nightmare go 
Or braggart rebel Love may overthrow! 
Now bland among his peers he doth assume 
Their blessed station, nevermore to know 
A lonely poet's tragedy of doom, 
Secure in earth's regard, so raised from the 
tomb. 

So rose the misty glamour of the dead, 
A shining garment wrapt on every limb 
As 'twere a cloak of cloud upon him spread 
That doth his presence from the world bedim. 
And he is one with god and seraphim, 
With all the ghostly part of humankind 
Whose dreams inspire, or beautiful or grim, 
Our present labor, — lovingly resigned, 
A radiant thought within the universal mind. 



[74] 




TO A YOUNG GIRL 

h hen that I met thee on the country- 
side, 
A maiden Juno in thy grace of 
form, — 

The bosom broad and deep, the rounded arm, 
The stature stately with a native pride, — 
I deemed thy nature with its form allied; 
That some aspiring love in thee did burn, 
Ambrosial nectar meet for holy urn ; 
But found thy spirit sleeping or denied. 
And now (thy presence lingers in my thought), 
I breathe a prayer, that heaven send to thee 
Some passion more than daily bread and water ; 
So that, though mortal-lived, thou grow to be 
Olympian-souled, earth's consecrated daughter, 
And wed or bear a hero, as thou ought. 



[75] 



BEAUTY 

er beauty lies upon her face 
As sunlight masks the barren 

sea, 
A fitful, accidental grace 
That time will ravage utterly. 

Not like the beauty all divine 
(The "House of God," a poet saith), 
Which is the inward soul's design, 
Its majesty supreme in death. 




176] 




MINIATURES 

I 

MARGARET 

f I dream upon thy face 
And its beauty comes to me 
'Tis the world's enchanted 
place 
Wheresoever I may be. 

'Tis the world's enchanted place, 
And the magic never dies 
From the glory of thy face, 
From the candor of thine eyes. 

II 

MIGNONNE 

Few have I seen to bless as rich, 

But thou hast wealth of hair and eyes,- 

Such a beauty as in niche 

Of ruined fane when moonlight dies; 

And in them such a warmth as lies 
All night above the misty plain, 
When unto dawn the brooding skies 
Hesitate 'twixt wind and rain. 



[77] 



Ill 

HELEN 

Thou art more perfect than night, 

Sweet, in thy lover's sight. 

Thy hair hath the tender shade 

In which the world's peace is laid; 

Thine eyes have the intimate glow 

Of mellow moons gone low. 

More perfect than dawn of the skies 

The love that shines in thine eyes, 

A sun that moves to his goal, — 

The unfrequent dawn of a soul. 

IV 

MILDRED 

Time, which gave thee beauty, made me wise, 
In that I know thy beauty and thy worth; 
And thought and suffering take from mine 

eyes 
Their wonted film of midnight and dull earth, 
So now I see thee first without disguise: 
A soul that hides its tenderness in mirth. 

V 

MARGUERITE 

The deeper mood of France thou art ; 
That faith of hers that flames in mirth, 
[78] 



Her sense of beauty more than earth ; 
God's vicar in the human heart. 

In Ronsard young and Hugo old — 
Their love and wisdom meeting now — 
That deeper mood of France art thou ; 
The beauty which is truth, best-told. 



[79] 




INVOCATION 

y love, too like a rose thou art 
Whose beauty, odorous with 

delight, 
Hangs feebly now upon my 
heart 
To scatter soon, like fragile night. 

My love, a queenly tigress be ! 
That when I quit thee in disdain 
Thy wrath shall make thy spirit free 
And fetter mine with stronger chain. 



[80] 




CASHMERE LADY 

aven-dark the lady's eyes, 

The lady of the Persian stream. 
Love, in oriental wise, 

Shone and shimmered through her 
dream. 
A shawl about her brow did gleam, 
Softly floating from her brow; 
Unflushed her cheek and pallid now 
But rich the shawl like mellow cream. 

O'er her throat the linen lay, 

Her arms were shaded by the shawl ; 
Thence it shivering fell away, 

Misty-silent waterfall. 

White lilies lapped the mossy wall 
Offering fragrance at her feet ; 
A mating bulbul trebled sweet, 

The lady wondering heard its call. 

By her hand a crystal cup 

Rested upon the river brink. 
Ruddy liquor filled it up 

Sweeter than a man may think. 

The sleepy moonlight deep did sink, 
Dulled the flame upon its tip. 
Whose boat adown that stream will slip, 

What prince that crimson goblet drink? 

[81] 




TO HERTHA 

[ssences of old love I bring 
To make the new love sweet; 
Oh many a wondrous, broken 
thing 
Makes love complete. 

What memories that buried lay 
In graveyard of the past, 
Take resurrection from this day, 
Divine at last. 

What whispers on what summer eves, 
What worship overthrown, 
What faith a loveless man believes 
No more his own ; 

What scattered, hopeless dreams arise 
And reign within my heart. 
The union of all prophesies, 
My love, thou art ! 



[82] 




THE MIRROR 

ithin a wondrous glass, 
A wondrous, magic mirror, 
I gaze and see my features nobler 
shown 

Than I can dare to own, — 
Oh nobler, fairer, dearer, 
Which inward graces brighten as they pass. 

How beautiful, how strange 

To note so wondrous graces ! 

A queen might feel her sceptre cheaply sold 

If she could thus behold 

A glass wherein her face is 

Beyond desire made fair by magic change. 

Such mirrors no one buys, 

But they may freely own them 

Who rightly love, who gladly greet the time. 

All these will have, sublime, 

Their souls and features shown them, 

Nobly renewed, within their children's eyes. 



[83] 




THE SICK CHILD 

n hour ago, — one hour ! — she seemed 
as new and bright 
As some first-opened bud upon the 
lap of spring. 
The wisdom of the world, reborn in her delight, 
Arose in music, changed by this so joyous thing. 

But now! I stand abashed in my inadequate 

years, 
Awed by the look of one wiser, older than I : 
A god's long tribulation broods behind her tears 
And nature's patient hurt is woven through her 

cry. 



[84] 




THE WIFE 

JUN-SEEKER and heaven-changer, 
Rise, rich in the power I give ; 
Go, glad in the joy I bring. 
What dream you, my love, of 
danger? 
You must live as heroes live 
And turn to new wandering, 
Already, alas, a stranger ! 

"The wings of my amplest pleasure 

Unfold for your boldest flight. 

Your soul perceives in my eyes 
Sky-spaces of spanless measure 

And suns of a fadeless light. 

Arise! I need not arise, 
Lying so close to my treasure. 

"I stay, but follows my blessing 
Unnamed but known to your soul 
So strong to take and employ. 

Another needs my caressing, 
I seek for no distant goal ; 
Like God, my task is my joy, — 

Possessed, far more than possessing." 



[85] 




THE LOST EPIC 

I is lost, like stars that roll too high; 

For he who tells his grief and 
mirth 

Had better write upon the common 
earth 
What, traced in constellations in the sky 
Others too little heed, 
Or if attracted by the sudden flame 
And rumor of his name 
They raise their glance to read, 
It seems remote and dim, no human gain. 
So having stared, they turn again 
Gladly to nearer, slighter things 
And praise, perhaps, a lesser bard who sings 
Never so nobly, but more plain, 
A man to men. 



[86] 




THE LITTLE WORLD 

muse upon the ever-lessening world, 
This scheme of love and thought 

wherein I dwell, 
And wonder, — once so mystical 
and vast, 
Now shrunk, as by my garden wall contained. 

Where then, O where the cosmic dream of youth ; 
O where the boast I flung about the stars, 
About the lives of men ; O where the love, 
A key to free so many prisoned lives? 

Gone, gone they say, the bubble with the breath 
That blew its moment's luster in the sun ; 
Gone, gone they cry; of youth's colossal world 
Remain a garden, half a dozen friends ! 

So let it be! What though its bounds with- 
draw 
Dream after dream, and hope retires to hope, 
The multitudes for whom I once aspired 
United in the child I now adore? 

What though the fruits within this garden 
close 

Consume the days and give my thoughts con- 
cern 

With gossip of the season, wind and rain, 

A little gossip by the mossy wall? 
[87] 



Friends, family, labor, with a loyal hope 
The world goes well, but not too anxious care; 
This is the natural compass of a man, 
A full heart loving best a little world. 

The full heart loving best a little world, 
O secret hidden from the heartless boy ! — 
And, as the soul develops, it lays down 
Its dizzy frets of parliament and king. 



[88] 




TO THE UNKNOWN GOD 

|H, doff the wrinkled mask you 
wear, 
This nature motley, worn and 
old- 
Stand forth, in gaiety or despair, 
Outside the dumb worlds we behold ! 

No more i' the silly seasons dwell 
Grinning at time with satyr face, 
Nor frown from the cold citadel 
You raised amid the voids of space; 

Else, tired of this unfriendly mask 
Our lives avert its stranger-gaze 
And turn them to a worthier task, 
An inward world of works and days. 



[91] 




INDICTMENT OF TIME 

o time I'll never turn a thankful face 
Though, as thou sayest, he will 

fetch a day 
When every radiant joy and black 
disgrace 
Indifferent seem, like gardens in decay. 
I look to him for nought but further woe: 
His days ne'er muster for a past defeat, 
But still intent on plunder as they go, 
Ignoble captains ! ever sound retreat. 
In him no virtue vests save other days 
Which still are thieves, though sorrow be their 

theft ; 
No more to him let earth present her praise, 
Poor Niobe, even of tears bereft. 

Physician yes, but not a judge is time, 
Who cures the stab but disregards the 
crime. 



[92] 



EPIGRAM: INSOMNIA 



he silly years, like driven sheep 
File blindly through the gates of 

life. 
We, tossed in dull or febrile strife, 
Count one, two, three . . . and yawn asleep. 




[93] 




THE RESIGNED 

oo blind you will not see the general 
grief 
Which voiceless you would hide from 
other minds, 
And never learn how nature craves relief 
From one disease in men of many kinds. 
Oh, fool, how many fools must time consume, 
Grim wasted heroes, blindly dumb like thee, 
Whose curtained spirits pent tremendous doom 
On private stage the world shall never see ! 
You're like an actor, fool, who argues blame 
Upon the author's warm and feeling pen 
For every passion, garbling it with shame: 
"Tears are for women, gravity for men." 
Dear fool, your heart shall tell if I am wrong, 
Which is your Poet, silenced far too long. 



[94] 



GOD-IN-MAN 




hen I do see our human nature 
stained 
Like beauteous garments trailed 
upon the ground, 
In tenement and palace alike constrained 
To ominous forms that do my soul confound ; 
At lust, at hate, at all the bestial shapes 
Brutality or weakness may assume, — 
Thrice-savage tigers, thrice-despoiling apes 
Nuzzling the world to one degraded doom, — 
Yet, at such monstrous fabric and design 
I cannot lash my heart to righteous hate, 
But murmur still, "Oh, piteous world of mine, 
Such stuff as maketh Christs, whenever fate 
In some unconscious and reluctant hour 
Will let mankind disclose his native power!" 



[95] 




LUCIFER 

hen you perceive the world's pro- 
phetic soul 
A prisoner grieving in the common 
mind, 

His cloudy wings bereft of their control, 
His arms downslack, his fiery vision blind; 
Oh when you see him weep at women's eyes 
Or hear his tender moan in children's breath, 
His innocence revealed in sinners' cries 
As by the good man's decent gradual death ; 
Do you not wonder oft and seek with me 
What power hath brought this Lucifer so low 
That every ditch bedaubs his brilliancy, 
And foulest huts on him their shadow throw? 
For this the bard invokes, in mournful rhyme, 
The awful charity of death and time. 



[96] 




THE STRICKEN KING 

were a foolish king, indeed, to 
show 
A regal brow and sceptre to the 
gaze 

But let his robe be muddy-dragged below, 
And think to rule respected all his days ; 
For soon his court will scorn such monarchy 
Nor call him king who is not wholly royal ; 
His slaves will grin, ev'n ministers cease to be 
Respectful subjects, in their heart disloyal. 
Yet man is so, who doth the world o'ersway 
And hold eternal kingdom of the deep, — 
His own conceit doth steal respect away, 
By birth a king, by act a chimney-sweep. 
His sceptre would become him like a star, 
If inward greed did not its glory mar. 

Yet, longer dwelling in that ruined court 

Where man, the stricken king, so ill doth reign, 

I find his folly wiser than report 

And his defilement daughter of his pain. 

He's like a king who never knew repose 

But lives in constant dread to be o'erthrown, 

Buying a half-obedience from his foes, 

Still half-a-king to them who would have none. 

And so his robe is stained, his front dismayed, 

His court a mock, himself but half a king ; 

[97] 



And so his magnanimity's arrayed 
So foully-gowned, a self-impeaching thing. 
And so his royalty might be a scorn, 
If it were not too piteous and forlorn. 

Himself his foe and bitter regicide ; 

Himself the rebel risen in his state ; 

Himself his spy and minister, to chide 

Himself to wrong and nourish his own hate ; 

Himself his fool that doth himself beguile ; 

Himself his scullion, foul to that degree ; 

Himself his beggar, skilled in tearful wile 

Himself to sue in his necessity ; 

Yet king withal, and proved by future act 

When all that baser self he may resign, 

Leagued with himself and firm in his own pact 

To live a monarch, royal in his line ! 

A king withal, and nowise made more clear : 
His clownish self his kingly self doth fear. 



[98] 




CHRISTI AMOR 

ow strange my love, O Lord, for see, 
I fight thee ; 
Thy word on every lip I do deny. 
No form thou comest in but I shall 
right thee, — 
I shall not take Thee wholly lest I die. 

Come thou in word or deed of men soever, 

Be thou incarnate in my heart's best cry, 

The strangeness of my love will leave off 

never, — 
I shall not take thee wholly lest I die. 

Yet Lord I love thee; yea, Lord Christ, I love 

thee! 
I love thee ere the wounds I make are dry, 
Nathless I hold the dripping scourge above 

thee, 
And shall not take thee wholly lest I die. 

Nay, see how great my love ! it will not alter 
Not if the sun be withered in the sky. 
All loves on earth but mine will fail and falter 
But, Lord, I shall not take thee lest I die. 

And still I must pursue where'er thou goest, 

Yea, loving thee so much must crucify. 

How strange the deepest love of men, thou 

knowest. 
I shall not take thee wholly lest I die ! 
[99] 




"AS WHEN FROM OUT A HOME" 

s when from out a home the mother 
goes, 
Forth-carried dead and given to the 
earth ; 

When sons and daughters, stricken in mid- 
mirth, 
Full sadly gaze upon each other's woes ; 
And one tries sobbing comfort, but he knows 
The house is dead forever, — room by room 
Sealed on the joyous past, ev'n with the tomb 
That silently upon her life doth close: 
So with the man from whom stark thoughts 

have ta'en 
The presence and the parenthood of God. 
However mild, however pure he be, 
His mind is locked in loneliness and pain, 
A ruined house. — An anxious orphan he, 
And dreads the drear asylum of the sod. 



[100] 



S3 



MEMORABILIA 

How hard it is to explain, in any way to bring 
back the charm of a person who leaves no adequate 
record. 

Richard Watson Gilder. 

ever dig i' the changing mold 
For their secret when they die, 
Nor inquire them, silent-souled 
In a mild, impersonal sky; 

But, when they have parted, gaze 
On these touched, familiar things — 
There the passion of their days, 
All their wistful secret, clings. 

Voices, sterner than their own, 
From their books and papers fall, 
From the pipe, the tattered gown, 
From the knapsack on the wall. 



[101] 




WAR AND PEACE 

he world has sown too long its fertile 
mind in war 
And raised its passions for an am- 
buscade ; 

Our souls and bodies sicken of the common scar, 
The mutual hurt, the mutual treason, made. 
Now closelier looking, see within each other's 

eyes 
One sorrow shining back, one need the same, — 
Yea, all the necessary hate we recognize 
From some eternal foe, not man, it came. 

Oh, thrust the sword away, that hateful key of 

hell! 
We take a manlier weapon for our foe 
And courage of a nobler kind to use it well, 
Such monstrous dangers lurk where we must go. 
The banner had its beauty? let it not be furled 
But all one color, all one proud design, 
Flaunt to our purer faith the union of this 

world 
When sun and sea have joined our battle line. 

Our dream is brotherhood ; we never prayed for 

peace, 
The idleness that slackens arm and brain ; 



[102] 



For war, our war, begins when fratricide shall 
cease, 

And lust despair a victory so vain. 

Then lest we drowse may drums in stormy pas- 
sion roll 

The joyous thrill of battle evermore: 

The tiger-man we hate has taught our chas- 
tened soul 

Devotion to the death, — which is war! 



[103] 



esa 



SSS! 



TIGER 

tiger, jungle-laired, thee God cre- 
ated! 
His hands thy regal limbs have 
fashioned, 
Yet who so perfect hate impassioned 
With all thy might and fearful beauty mated? 

Was't God or jubilant, destroying devil 
Has made my heart a jungle, frantic 
With more than tiger's frenzied antic — 
The sensual feast of skulls, the bloody revel? 

Lord, Lord, the heart when tiger rageth 

through it ! 
A garden gashed of all its lilies, 
A gutted tomb where lethal chill is — 
Canst Thou it sweeten, Lord, canst Thou re- 
new it? 



[104] 




THE BEGINNING OF LAUGHTER 

(Here was no laughter then, 
But something unnamed, unspoken 
Of tears that dripped an unfelt 
course. 

For it was evening, and the wolves 
From far off, back, from mountains and the 

trackless woods, 
With thin and wavering-echoed cry and doleful 

shriek and wail, 
Lined round the thoughts of men, bounding 
emotion with incessant fear. 

There was no laughter then, 

For suns marked out a waiting fang and bloody 

mouth, 
Morning brought the skulking wretch to light. 
Stones crashed 

From crag with bound on bound; 
Men sideways looked, and saw, and snarled, 
And hungered on. 
Openly a ripple pushed the stream 
And big and black in deep, in shallow, lurked 
The monster, waiting. 
Aye, there was no laughter then. 
Ever in, and round, from above the faces peered, 
Each one fearful. 



[105] 



Nor was there height, — height of thought or 
gaze. 

Man crept on earth, a bent thing, never sky- 
ward looking, — 

Less, skyward thinking. 

At last, one fortunate born, 

Whiter skinned than his hairy fellows, — 

Whiter skinned and deeper browed, — 

Crept up to watch some star that mocked his 
conception, 

(Making a feeble wonder in his soul), 

And creeping, found a crag that closed the val- 
ley, — 

A great rock. 

There, all night long, he gazed upon that star, 

This new-born child of thought, 

Looked upward, looked out. 

Dawn found him still awake, 

His eyes open, but wider open the heavy-filmed 
eyes of his soul, 

His head reflectively rested upon his hands. 

Light rolled down through the clefts, flooding 
the valleys. 

The watcher gazed where other valleys cleft 
more hills beyond, 

And how the river reappeared larger, farther 
down. 

So grew the world unto his sight. 

[106] 



He marked, as in another world, 

The drear, hard habitation of the tribe. 

Outstretched, his eager head 

Peered down as to a game whose interest fills 

the heart. 
Pie marked the ant-like goings-out from caves, 
Their swift, instinctive swerve. 
He saw the tumult of foolish battles, 
Seizures, thefts, hands uplift in hate. 
He marked each rush, each leap from high, 
And felt as in himself the crunch of bones. 
He shuddered at the striped beast ; 
He saw the woman crouching still, immovable, 
Her head low. 
There were deaths and cries. 

But he, with eagerness all new 

At this strange scope and spectacle of life, 

Followed the weak thread of being 

Through all its windings ; heard with new ears 

the flaring cries. 
Now in his heart he felt a stir 
As when a seed bursts, or a tree 
Leaps into springtime and the tension of 

leaves, — 
A stir within him, a growing, an increasing, 
A waxing mightier and mightier. 
So brooding he, the pioneer of the human soul, 
The first pilot on the ocean of destiny, 

[107] 



Knew that the stir within him could not stay 
But must break from its prison, as life breaks 

from the egg; 
And rose, open-mouthed, facing the west, the 

huge sources of night, — 
When, stretching his arms as he would fold 
Then to his human heart all sorrows of men 
Past, present, and to come soever, — 
(A prehistoric pitier of men, the child-soul that 

with the generations 
Grew into the stature of Christ), — 
Poised his head higher, and facing the heavens 

full-eyed, square, — 
The first man to question God, — 
Laughed to himself ! 

Like to water running under the ground, 

Past a bleak pit where a doomed man 

Licks his hand for thirst; who hears the water 

flowing 
But does not cry, and endures to the end of the 

bitter life: 
So the laughter was in sound, 
And like the water it flowed forth, and past, 

and departed, 
And there was an end of it. 

Then he, grown to the height of his being, 
Shrunk down the backward slope of growth, 

[108] 



And bowed his head, and crept from the crag, 

sorrowing. 
But there was that in his eyes the old fear 
Could never quench, nor the old animalism 
Utterly win back ; which when his fellows saw 
They stood in awe of him, — 
Him, who had first laughed at the world's fear, 
Him, the first poet. 



[109] 




THE POET 

is soul a hid desire obeys 
Which, like dasdalian wings, 
Impels him from the prison-maze 
Of customary things. 



"I know not how or where," he said, 
"But from myself I fly 

As leaves must when the tree is dead, 

Wind-blown across the sky. 

"When sorrow clogs my active mind 
With dullness worse than death, 
I leave this winter-self behind, — 
Spent thoughts and laboring breath,- 

"And rising from that barren home 
In far, unconscious flight, 
To planets of new joy I roam 
And skies of more delight. 

"But when I tire and sink again 

Within myself," he said, 
"It seems as if this world of men 

Had risen from the dead." 



[110] 



THE HYPOCRITE 

heavier world than God's you 
bear 
Upon that misdevoted head ; 
Yet when unburdened, being 
dead, 
No god,— a pigmy,— totters there. 




[Ill] 




IDOLATOR 

want Thy presence ever nigh, 
Thy love, Thy beauty and 

Thy grace ; 
Yet when I sought Thou wert 
not by, 
I prayed, but never saw Thy face. 

Within my soul Thy glory burns 
Serene, unchanging yet afar, 
So bright its own thick shadow turns 
Like chaos round a lonely star. 

I asked of nature ; everywhere 
A footstep and a sign of Thee, 
Alas, too grand, — not mine to dare 
Omniscience and infinity ! 

A little image I have made, 
Behold, dear God, a tiny thing, 
And I have hoped (but half afraid) 
Thou couldst approve its fashioning. 

I hoped Thou would its form approve 
And enter, as a temple fit, 
Since Thou, so human in Thy love, 
Might love the shape containing it. 

They may have right, — I do not know, — 
Who throne Thee in the solemn sky, 
But oh, dear God, I love Thee so 
I'd have Thee ever small, and nigh! 
[112] 




CRISIS 

ver, ever the wind blows, storm or 
peace; 
Rolls, rolls the ocean its eternal 
tides ; 

The constant sun returns ; each star abides 
In heavens that change but never, never cease. 
Only our mortal, loving race 
Feels any reck for time and place. 

Ever, ever the wind fares back and forth ; 
Eternal rocks the sea-tide outward, in; 
The sun renews all kalends that have been ; 
Restore the stars their cycles to the north. 
Only our eager, hopeful eyes 
Mark progress on the wheeling skies. 

Ever, ever the wind its tireless flight 
Urges along the ocean's wave-beat shore ; 
The day receives and spends, like all before, 
Its portion of the universal light. 
Only our true, devoted breast 
Divides the seasons, worst and best. 

O wind, be favorable to my small bark ; 
For my sake, ocean, lay your tempest-foam. 
For me the last sun flickers ; nearing home, 
Kind stars, direct my harbor through the dark. 
Only within our lonely soul 
God thrust a secret and a goal. 
[113] 




MASTER 

will make me a master, I said, 
And seize life where it is eager and 

new, 
Flaming from the Maker, blood 
red. 
Across the jungle I crept 
Even to the tiger's cave, and slew 
That beautiful body striped and sleek and 

strong 
While the spirit slept. 

Folly! sobbed nature through her language- 
winds, 
Folly and wrong! 
Go forth, return to man's own jungle of 

minds ; 
There, slaying the fierce desire 
And striking dead the brutal thoughts, she said, 
Take to yourself the tiger's primal fire, — 
Live the Master's life, eager and new, blood 
red! 



[114] 




PROMETHEAN 

o fling off name, character and fate ; 
To stand still like a tree 
The body all one conscious bloom, 
Head high and stalwart arms out 
straight 

Capable to bear the fruits of life ; 

To run like a river 

Undammed, rapid, sped by desire 

For newer landscapes in the soul, 

Feeling some premonition of the sea, — 

A mad, exultant shiver, — 

This is to catch again 

A spark from the lost fire, 

And know once more the mystery of men. 



[115] 



PILGRIMS 

ih, what's the toil of foot and hand 
To walk, to touch, to hear, to see, — 
That merely bears from land to land 
This lethal flesh and bones of me? 

Vain pilgrim, without shrine or goal, 

Be still, like nature's patient clod. 

Do thou advance, aspiring soul, 

Through every clime and thought of God ! 




[116] 




FREE CAPTAINS 

e loose our sail to every gale 
And never reef for night or 

squall ; 
In spite of all 
The storms that fly about the sky 
And all the plunging breakers hurled 
We ride the foam 
That bears us home 
Beyond the farthest corner of the world. 

We give the slip to every ship 

Whose skipper's paid to stay on board. 

He can't afford 

To point her nose where danger blows 

But waits in harbor, safely furled, 

And fears the foam 

That bears us home 

Beyond the farthest corner of the world. 

We take the sea because 'tis free 

Of settled towns and roads that bind. 

Out sail, to find 

Some jolly place, some lusty race 

Who cut their sail but never furled; 

Who rode the foam 

That bears us home 

Beyond the farthest corner of the world. 



[117] 



We fling our boast from coast to coast 

For naught of war or trade we make, 

But for the sake 

Of the free soul and the glad goal 

That shines where seas are maddest curled,- 

To ride the foam 

That bears us home 

Beyond the farthest corner of the world ! 



[118] 



THE EMPTY BOWL 

Youth What's the soul? 

Age Empty bowl ! 

Poet Fill it full of stars and flowers, 

Fill it full of sun and showers, 
Beauty earth's and beauty sky's, — 
Fill it, ere the moment flies 
Which to none comes after! 

Mother Nay, not full ! Leave many spaces 
For kind hearts and friendly faces, 
Children's warmth and women's 

graces 
Human pain and human laughter. 

Poet Men are noblest when alone 

With the stars, — 

Mother When men have grown 

Beauty never can atone 
For the love of woman. 

Priest Not so weak, so human, 

Not so wanton-vain ! 
Fill it not with earthly care 
Since delight will turn to pain. 
Leave the world's unseemly revel 
To the devil — 

Naught has worth but vow and solemn 
prayer ! 

Cynic What's the cup devotion fills 

Or that silly passions brim 
Blindly-bubbling to the rim? 
[119] 



Fill your soul so fast, my master, 

Death will empty it the faster, 

Breaks each cup he does, and spills 

Red wine, white wine in the dust, — 

Spill it must! 
Youth Vain the effort that would fill it? 

Let the Maker take 

What so soon will break ! 

Wither, wither flowers, 

Men ungreeted pass, 

Idly fall the hours! 

'Tis a weak, a useless glass 

If I needs must spill it. 
Poet Beauty brings an hour's delight, 

Let no rapture pass untasted. 
Mother I shall love with all my might 

Home and husband. 4 

Priest Pray aright, 

All but faith is wasted. 
Youth Oh, the yearning soul! 

Too, too fragile bowl 

Made for some immortal wine 

And a god's intoxication. 

I will ask the whole creation 

For a permanence divine. 

What I hope so purely 

Must be granted, surely ! 

Why not fill our souls with God? 
Cynic Fool ! Who— 

GOD Wheeling star and sleeping clod, 

[120] 



Sunset I, and summer rains, 
Children's voices, homes and household 

care, 
Friendship, virtue, silence, prayer. 
Let your human souls with these be 

filled. 
When at last the wine is spilled 
From the life-bowl broken, — 

All What remains? 

GOD I am there. 



[1*1] 



THE MATERIALISTIC SCIENTIST 

ith wondrous powers you make 

intense 
The ear to list, the eye to see, 
Yet feel not in the elements 
An unsubstantial Mystery, — 
O modern wastrel, joylessly 
Living and dying by the sense ! 




[122] 



IMMORTAL 

o much, no more, have I descried 
The movings of the Master mind : 
The blowing of a bournless wind, 
The turning of a timeless tide ; 

And that the wind blows o'er the lea 

To ripen stores of asphodel, 

And that the tide turns to impel 

Our blissful dead across the sea. 




[123] 



EPIGRAM 

ear not, for God has many a 
world. 
These lives now prisoned in dis- 
tress 

Await, like ships in harbor furled, 
Winds of diviner happiness. 




[124] 




ORTHODOXY 

h, let us, like the bitter dreg of wine 
That's stood too long undrunken in 

the bowl, 
Spill out this barren love that once 
divine 
So vigorous brimmed the world's aspiring soul! 
Man's not that beggar, sure, that he must drain 
The acid vintage of a broken press, 
Nor dull his heart with unconsoling pain, 
That craves by nature joy and tenderness? 
Ah no, but rather say you never loved 
Nor knew, O world, the passion of delight, 
Else you by such a cheat were never moved 
But discontented, soon would set it right. 
For he who truly loves will love again, 
Though on the cross and scourged by jealous 
men. 



[125] 




ELEGY 

is agony upon him, he has passed 
The lonely door of death, 
Leaving the world his body and his 
breath, 

His reputation and his character. 

With these he has no more concern at last. 

The world must take what was the world's to 
give; 

Must take and use again 

To house the lingering of another soul, 

For he, the wanderer, 

No longer fellow to the lives we live, 

Has stumbled on and lost the world of men. 

Oh he has fled 

Beyond the limit of the sun, 

Beyond the seasons wliere they roll, 

Beyond the years: the last, remotest one 

Shall reach him not, the unattainable dead ! 

And he is fugitive 

Forever from that nature he had worn, 

The world-wide searching eyes, 

The world-deep loving heart, 

The mind wherein were born 

Thoughts of an infinite scope and enterprise- 

These now are part 



[126] 



Of us, not him, and stay 
Within our world, still subject to a power 
Which, in the agony of one mad hour, 
He learned to put away. 

Against the darkened curtain of that doom 

I see his life replayed 

Vivid and stark, like sudden lightning made 

Through tangled storm and gloom. 

I see O God ! who could not see before, 

The desperate load he bore 

Merely to live, to linger here awhile 

A servant in the house of thought and sense. 

A single glance, a movement slow, intense, 

One tender smile, 

Affirm the inward failure no one knew 

Louder than Waterloo. 

Failure? He felt it so 

Whose spirit could not stay content with less 

Than states of being joyous and sublime 

We dare not term success; 

Who longed to throw 

A spiritual passion in each word 

And wing our languid time 

W T ith instincts of forgotten loveliness. 

Yet was he like a prisoner, deterred 

By some too-ponderous chain 

Within the dungeon of his physical pain. 

His soul, for self too vast, 

[127] 



Fettered by secret tyrants in the blood, 

Hated the personal mood 

His languor fixed about it, and was strong 

To name such living failure till the last. 

On him, who felt each day 

Some noble purpose gather all in vain, 

Some aspiration hurried to its grave 

He loved but could not save, — 

Who called this failure, — nay, 

On him the wrong ! 

He does not fail who brings 

One desperate, purging grief to men ; 

Who, faithful to his agony, shows again 

Our need of perfect things. 

Nay, but in the moment's awful peace 
That bore him forth 
And gave his body to the jealous earth, 
At last I know 

Too, too irrevocably the dead 
And too far is fled 
That one may so 

Pity his pain or reverence his success. 
But let this be 

The play of little children, or the scheme 
Of earth-bound, cunning minds, that raise 
Vain trophies to a blatant victory; 
Whose days 

Are shut within this sensuous house; whose 
dream 

[128] 



Deflowers with the winter of the world. 

For he, still penitent 

To that perfection earth can not contain 

Nor thought and sense invent, 

Descrying dimly through each failing nerve 

Beauty he could not serve, 

In brooding desperation, hurled 

The pile of nature's prison all apart 

And trod the fiery tyranny of pain 

Into the dust death mingled with his own. 

Roll on, O star implacable, and roll 
To whatsoever good, fatal time, 
Your seasons may pretend ! 
For me these things have end. 
The love that made us single, will and heart, 
With him has passed sublime 
The lonely door of death 
Into its native world, my conscious soul ; 
And though your troubled tides upheave 
Interminably, and make my breath 
The common, desolate moan 
Of stricken beast, 
I stand released. 

The very stab of pain whereby I grieve, 
Wherethrough I die, 

Gives 'surer, sterner strength that I may cry 
Over this lethal world, Elegy ! 



[129] 




THE RETURN OF RELIGION 

TO ABDUL BAHA 

jDOrs from gardens deeply hid 
Remote from spoiling change, and 

tended long, 
Odors and perfumes delicately 
strong 
Upon the winds have slid 
Into our modern sense. 
Oh subtle, oh intense 
With more than balm, with healing for the 

mind! 
How shall we speak our gratitude to those 
Whose hid, devoted garden grows 
The flowers of faith, of innocence 
And strews their virtue freely on the wind? 

Deeper than sense and farther than our blood 

These odors penetrate, 

Which pierce within our soul's most secret mood 

And change our fate ; 

Incorporate 

Henceforth with all we feel and think and do, 

Thereby with what we are. 

Once more we feel an aspiration rise 

From depths of our own nature to renew 

Its marriage-vows with God, 

[130] 



To enter, bidden, His adorable skies 

No longer hateful, alien or too far. 

Once more we think, in rapture of new dream, 

Of those forsaken visions prophesied; 

That glorious City long ago descried, 

How long, alas, untrod ! 

And once again, with bolder hand and will, 

With hearts fire-purified, 

We turn us to the interrupted scheme, 

Never, never contented now until 

All men foregather to one holy hill. 

But many peoples claim our gratitude 

Whose lives release that essence we adore, 

Contributive to our religious mood. 

Not one tradition only, not one race — 

No, all past time and every humble place 

Which blindly groped apart 

Unite at last, at last restore 

Their scattered features to one perfect face, 

Their sundered loves to one fraternal heart. 

We could not spare 

A single prophet, any votive fane, 

One amulet or token, making plain 

Our necessary, life-instinctive care 

For worship and for prayer. 

He is not jealous nor implacable 

Who freely offered His divinity 

In measure portioned to the savage soul ; 

[131] 



Who was the druid's tree, 

Who was the voodoo's spell, 

Who was the sun that made the Indian whole ! 

The prophets in one fellowship return, 

Their holy sanctions bright upon them, each 

Bearing a gift of wondrous act or speech, 

Some fragment of God's personality 

Whereby we learn 

The nature He must be. 

Adam returns who at the gates of time 

Thrust back the sensuous beast 

Trailing the dormant soul through jungle 

slime ; 
Moses, that ancient awe, 
Father of social consciousness and law; 
Christ, whose tremendous heart 
Broke to restore the world's exhausted blood; 
Buddha, God's answer to the groping East, 
Whom seekers imitate; 

With him Mahomet, battling once apart, — 
Authentic both 

Yet revelations of the infinite mood 
Our fathers, snug in one tradition, loathe, — 
And nameless more, forgotten now, who give 
Some else unknown authority to live, 
Some path to man's else night-encompassed 

fate. 
Fearful of them no more 

[132] 



As knowing Whom they represent, 

Nor jealous of their delegated power, 

We take their gifts, their certitude and peace 

Renewed like nature's primal element. 

Aye, we increase ! 

All unexpended we, not old or worn 

But vigorous with the glad intent of spring, 

The world redated from new vision born 

Which they, united, loved, could only bring. 







j^gsggy 




THE 


END 1 l/r) 


LvMg& 


ag 


l^g?g&$SiUI 



[133] 



JUL 21 W13 



Ill 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



015 937 233 9 £ 




